A controlling doctrine?

This is related to my earlier post about the canon-within-a-canon.  Tim Chester in the midst of reviewing Con Campbell's new book Paul and Union with Christ (which looks fascinating by the way) observes that "Campbell rejects the idea that any one theme (like union with Christ) can be identified as ‘the centre’ of Paul’s thought". A truism of hermeneutics is 'to let the clearer parts of Scripture explain the less clear parts', which is effectively the same thing as having a canon-within-a-canon. But here Con Campbell is saying that while Union with Christ might an important doctrine, it's not the one we can organise the Ordo Salutis around. In other words while Union with Christ might be a clear and profound doctrine it's not the one to interpret/control/organise the other doctrines of grace. So how do we organise/interpret the doctrines of grace? It feels like asking which books of the Bible do you prefer! The answer I suspect is to use the Gospel (Titus 3:4-6 is my current favourite definition) and my own personal context to control which doctrine gets emphasised.

[An English signal box, controlling a railway junction.]

Meta-narrative: How do we know what matters?

Part of a small series about how the Gospel changes everything (2 Timothy 3:17 & 2 Peter 1:3). 1. Ethics. 2. Purpose 3. Patterns  4. Pictures  5. Boundaries 6. Occasional Details 7. Meta Narrative

God promises David a Kingdom that will last forever (2 Sam 7:13), and then in Daniel we get the promise of a Kingdom starting small and growing to fill the world (Daniel 2:31-35). Jesus' parables about the Kingdom flesh out more of how the Kingdom works, how it grows and what it's like. Like everything else in the Bible it's only a partial picture, we need to fill it out with logic and imagination. What's important here though, and this is one of NT Wright's themes but he's only echoing earlier Reformed thinking, is our glimpse of the meta-narrative. The story we are being saved into. Salvation is for being rescued from the shadowlands into eternity with God and all the adventures that follow. This is more than recognising a biblical or earthly pattern, this is moving from the perspective of character to narrator. There is an uncompromising cultural authority about this viewpoint and the exclusive Christian glimpse of it. This may not be the starting point for apologetics or preaching but it should lurk behind every statement behind every motivation, as God's people we have been given access to a greater story.

[Digory in the Garden of Youth, Magicians Nephew]

Dispensational Theology

Discuss:

"Dispensationalism rests on the view that God's dealings with men have proceeded through 'well-defined time-periods' ie 'dispensations', in each of which God reveals a particular purpose to be accomplished in that period, to which men respond in faith or unbelief. ... Dispensationalists differ in identification of the dispensations, but it is fairly general to distinguish those of innocency (Adam before the fall), conscience (Adam to Noah), promise (Araham to Moses), Mosaic law (Moses to Christ), grace (Pentecost to the rapture) and the millennium. The sharp distinction drawn between Israel and the church (except during the dispensation of grace) is crucial. ... The basic hermeneutical principle is literal interpretation, ... which insists that throughout, 'the reality of the literal meaning of the terms involved' is determinative. ... Some details are in dispute among dispensationalists. These include the number and designations of the dispensations and the point at which the dispensation of grace began."

('Dispensational Theology' H.H. Rowden, New Dictionary of Theology, (IVP 1988) p200-201)

This describes my Grandmother's dispensationalism, is it what you have in mind when you hear the term? I've snipped only sections of the article, should the definition be wider or narrower? What is there to agree with or disagree with?